Brewery Workers Form a National Union in Baltimore

On August 29, 1886, delegates meeting in Baltimore founded the National Union of United Brewery Workmen. The organization brought brewery workers together across local and craft divisions at a time when large urban breweries depended on increasingly specialized wage labor. The union campaigned over hours, pay, workplace authority, and the conditions under which workers sometimes lived at breweries. Its formation makes organized labor visible as a force in industrial beer history rather than treating brewery growth solely as an achievement of owners and brands.